New HBU dean comes full circle as theologian

Michael Todd Bates is the new dean of Houston Baptist University's School of Christian Thought.

Michael Todd Bates is the new dean of Houston Baptist University's School of Christian Thought.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

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Michael Todd Bates is the new dean of Houston Baptist University's School of Christian Thought.

Michael Todd Bates is the new dean of Houston Baptist University's School of Christian Thought.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

New HBU dean comes full circle as theologian

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Twenty-six years ago, Michael Todd Bates was a football player at the University of Central Florida.

An adolescence spent in the Southern Baptist church had made him a good enough person — he loved his neighbors, treated others as he would want to be treated and, like a good southern boy, went by his middle name.

But something was missing.

There was no big revelation, no Martin Luther-lightning storm moment. The then-20-year-old just looked inside himself and realized he needed a change.

Bates’ lifetime of theological work is coming full circle as the pastor and academic took the helm on May 1 of Houston Baptist University’s School of Christian Thought.

For Bates, 49, the position of dean is a culmination of decades examining the crossroads of faith and reason, Christ and culture.

“I was drawn to HBU because they weren’t just talking about it,” Bates said. “They were implementing this work, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Bates’ youth was decidedly unremarkable in terms of a religious upbringing, he said. The youngest of two sons in a “culturally Christian” family — at church every Sunday but without a deeper practice of Scripture — Bates entered college lacking a personal relationship with Jesus.

“I heard all the stuff but it wasn’t real to me,” Bates said. “I didn’t have a living relationship with Jesus Christ.”

The native of Winter Park, Fla., struggled with his faith.

“I was at school for athletics,” Bates said. “I would not have called myself a Christian back then, but I was also coming to terms with who I was as a human being.”

In his junior or senior year — it’s been so long that even remembering his graduation year takes effort, Bates said he began to see a higher need for God in his life after reflecting on years of interactions with his family and peers.

“I wasn’t the great guy I thought I was,” Bates said. “In dealing with people over and over again, I began to see my character and realized how much I needed Jesus.”

Beyond just taking comfort in the church, however, Bates rapidly found himself drawn to the study of theology, how it shaped the modern world and how people can use a theological background to view society.

He found inspiration in the work being done at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., by the Dean Timothy George who was examining rifts between different groups in the Southern Baptist Convention. Bates worked toward his master’s in divinity, focusing on the qualities of every different Christian church that transcended denominational identity.

His aspirations for the right program in continuing theology education still simmered when he returned to lead a church in Orlando after graduating from Beeson in 1995.

Bates came across an article authored by two theologians based at the University of Texas at Arlington on exactly the kind of work he had been seeking: the study of the intersection between the classical world, the early church and modern culture.

“I thought, ‘Texas? I don’t want to go to Texas,’” Bates said.

In the spring of 2000, Bates finished his doctorate in the theology of language at UT Arlington and began teaching at Baptist Criswell College in Dallas where he stayed as a professor for eight years before moving to Patrick Henry College in Virginia and California Baptist University, where he taught for the past 12 years.

A strong academic background and a history of serving the church were the primary qualifications HBU was looking for in a candidate to head the School of Christian Thought, said Jeffrey Green, the founding dean of the school and the chair of the philosophy department.

“I liked the interdisciplinary research aspect,” Green said. “And his attitude — how he’s ready to come here and roll up his sleeves and get to work.”

The school was founded in the fall of 2012, when the College of Arts and Humanities growth adversely affected the student to teacher ratio standard at the small university. The college became the School of Humanities, the School of Fine Arts and the School of Christian Thought.

Houston Baptist University, located in southwest Houston, opened in 1963, when the Union Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas sought to found a college whose mission aligns closely with Bates’ own goal as dean — to provide students and graduates with a theological lens through which to view the world.

To accommodate the growing theology program, HBU worked with with denominational partners across the city to create the school solely devoted to theological studies.

“We’re growing here at HBU,” Green said. “Theology has been part of the university from the very beginning. Being able to make that connection was really important.”

The school’s growth — from an enrollment of 2,339 in 2007 to 3,325 in 2017 — presented a challenge in providing personalized attention to students.

“Much of the struggle in history is dealing with human nature and what we’re seeing today in this political climate is the modern version,” Bates said. “The answer is not in political rhetoric. I want to help (the students) get a historical perspective centered on Christ and Scripture. We’re still talking about what it means to be human.”

It presents a unique challenge for Bates as well, who is guiding the religious school through a period when Evangelical Christians are being demonized by those who disagree with their beliefs and by Christians of other denominations — not for the first time, Bates said.

“The world needs unity that only Christ can provide,” Bates said. “Economics, politics, whatever people’s jobs are, we want them to have a theological perspective and to relate that to how they’re treating other people.”

The school has grand plans for the future, said Green, who will continue his role as graduate dean.

The master’s of divinity program is expanding rapidly, but the specifics of the future aren’t set in numbers, Bates said. Rather, he aims to measure success by implementing HBU’s core values after students move on in their religious education or into other fields.

“We are rooted in the Baptist tradition, rooted in Christ and serving our neighbors,” Bates said. “And that’s going to manifest itself in the classroom, in the college and the university at large and in the community.”

marialuisa.rincon@chron.com

More Information

In 1952, the Union Baptist Association formed a committee to study the possibility of locating a Baptist college in Houston. The association later approved the concept of establishing a new college. In 1957, a Houston land developer, Frank Sharp, offered to sell Union Baptist Association 390 acres in southwest Houston for the construction of a college. Rice University agreed to lend most of the money needed with the land as collateral. To complete the funding, 25 business men, since called “founders,” pledged to be responsible for $10,000 each. By 1958, a campus site of 196 acres was acquired in southwest Houston. Dr. W. H. Hinton began service as the first president of the college on July 1, 1962. The college opened in September 1963 with a freshman class of 193 students, a cluster of new buildings, and a teaching staff of 30 faculty.